THE SYRIAN conundrum exemplifies the policy challenges that arise when regimes face political crises and violent transitions under opposition pressures. Syria is not the first such case nor will it be the last. So it may be useful to recall how similar past scenarios have unfolded—and sometimes been managed—in order to draw lessons for Syria and future crises.

One can imagine a range of outcomes in Syria. Most pose considerable risks for the United States, Europe, Russia and Syria’s immediate neighbors. But Syrians themselves are paying the price of this violent transition and ultimately are shaping its course. Still, what the United States does or decides not to do can make a significant difference while the clay of political change is still moist. So it is useful to look at some of the available tools of influence and the considerations that should guide those who use them.

A starting place is to examine the range of possible outcomes from such cases. At least seven can be identified. They include:

(i) a “revolution” in which a more or less coherent new order sweeps away the old as a result of violent struggle (Ethiopia, 1974; Uganda, 1986; Russia, 1917);

(ii) a “velvet” revolution in which the regime collapses amid a mixture of street power, external pressure and leadership splits (the Philippines, 1986; Egypt and Tunisia, 2011; the Soviet Union, 1991);

(iii) bloody, broken-back regime change following prolonged strife as regime elements defect and leaders arrange their exit or are killed (Yemen, 2011; Libya, 2011; Ethiopia, 1991);

(iv) successful repression using scorched-earth tools so that the opposition is defeated (Peru, 1992–; Sri Lanka, 2009; Zimbabwe, 2000–);

(v) drawn-out political stalemate followed by “negotiated revolution” (South Africa, 1992–1994; Burma, 2010–);

(vi) prolonged bloody strife that prompts coercive external intervention and an imposed peace (Bosnia, 1995); and

(vii) prolonged strife that prompts powerfully backed, externally led negotiations leading to an internationally monitored transition and elections (Namibia, 1988–1991; Liberia, 2003–2005; Mozambique, 1990–1994; El Salvador, 1992–1994).

These outcomes may only be stage one of a longer transition process. They do not tell us what comes next. Prolonged stalemate could evolve into a de facto partition of the state into ethnic, regional or confessional rump enclaves as the regime arms its core supporters and the central state loses control of much of its territory (Somalia, Democratic Republic of the Congo). The Egyptian example suggests that velvet revolutions can morph into directions that remain unpredictable for some time, while bloody regime change in Libya has been followed by ambiguous but still hopeful incoherence. Successful negotiation, on the other hand, could produce autonomy arrangements that partially decentralize power while the now more constrained state remains intact (as in Aceh in Indonesia or Mindanao in the Philippines).

If outside states attempt to freeze power relations or entrench political-military groups in open-ended power-sharing structures, they likely will sow seeds of future conflict and distort the chances for organic political development (Lebanon and Bosnia). Powerful local actors—the men with the guns—will often try to game the arrangements that flow from negotiated peace deals and use the trappings of democracy to seize and hold on to power, as in Cambodia, Sudan/South Sudan and Angola. Too often, such negotiations simply reflect the balance of coercive forces on the ground at the time they take place, and unarmed civilians become marginalized.

Therefore, much depends not only on local power balances but also on the timing and priorities of outside powers when deals are done. A “peace at any price” approach might respond to immediate humanitarian imperatives, but it also could entrench the wrong actors, prolonging rather than resolving society’s problems. Above all, the impact of external intervention—both military and political—will depend on the level of commitment that outsiders bring to the follow-on implementation phase after the immediate transition takes place.

AS OF this writing, one can make a few tentative comments on Syria’s trajectory in comparison with these varied scenarios. First, successful repression by the Assad regime appears to have failed. Second, a scenario of de facto—let alone de jure—partition of the country would compound the turmoil already facing the region and thus would find little favor in Turkey, Iran or Iraq. Third, an outright victory by opposition forces that effectively blows away the regime is highly unlikely. Fourth, there is little chance of decisive external combat intervention on behalf of the opposition. Syrian mayhem appears unlikely to prompt a repetition of the kind of NATO/UN military action seen in the Balkans, and Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad knows it.

One implication of these observations is that Syria’s best chance lies in the possibility of an internationally led, negotiated transition that is subject to some measure of external monitoring or peacekeeping (UN/Arab League). The key to such an outcome would hinge on American and Russian negotiators with the assistance of UN–Arab League special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, the veteran Algerian mediator. To be sure, none of the above scenarios will be an exact “fit” for Syria. Something approaching scenario (vii) may be the best hope.

But hope is not a strategy, and simply declaring that Assad must go is not a policy. Lining up the tools and resources to support something like scenario (vii) requires facing some fundamental choices. One central challenge lies in deciding how much of the Syrian state apparatus can serve as the institutional base for the transition and future governance. Another question concerns the fate of people associated with the government during the decades of rule by the Assads. A further challenge lies in the timing of U.S. engagement with Russian leaders, without whom it is difficult to imagine a negotiated transition to a new Syria. The task here is to mesh the American quest for as much of the right kind of change as possible with the Russian quest for a measure of continuity to protect Russian interests. As pressures mount on the regime, Russian impatience for some sort of arrangement will grow. As casualties mount and Brahimi’s dire warnings about the rising humanitarian toll come to pass, American and Western leaders will be under growing pressure to take further steps. While Syria is not “ripe” for negotiation today, the scenario could ripen usefully. There is also the risk that Syria may not ripen at all, but merely rot on the vine.

The test of statesmanship in such violent transitions is to define the least bad outcome and to select a mixture of diplomatic, economic and coercive tools appropriate to the specific case. This requires a very careful assessment of local and regional players. The bad guys may be evident, but good guys could be hard to find. If so, it will be best to help foster a credible process rather than trying to select winners.

Transitional diplomacy requires leverage, and leverage comes from power, in one form or another. Direct military intervention may be the least flexible option in such situations, for several reasons. First, to paraphrase Colin Powell in the Iraq context, if we break it we may end up owning the result. This is a particular dilemma for the United States because of its vast—if stretched—power resources. Analyzing the so-called values cases of the 1990s—Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda—Richard Betts made a persuasive case that “impartial” intervention is a delusion. As he put it, to intervene militarily is to decide who rules the target state—a reality both when we arrive and when we leave. But nonintervention could simply deliver the society to those who are best armed and organized; in other words, it is another way to decide who rules. We have seen the first principle at work in Afghanistan since 2001 and the second principle in the Great Lakes region of Africa since 1994. Neither example gives confidence that military instruments can be effective when employed in isolation from other policy tools.

Clearly, there has been no appetite for direct, boots-on-the-ground military intervention in Syria. One reason is war fatigue, but another is that U.S. decision makers are not sure who (if anyone) warrants support. Beyond that, U.S. leaders have been wary of assuming responsibility for another regime change in the Arab world. U.S. direct combat intervention is not highly correlated with “success” in the transition cases referenced above.

But the United States and its allies nonetheless hold other tools of leverage and influence. One is economic sanctions designed to wear down and isolate the target regime. But this is an extremely blunt instrument that hurts civilians first and foremost. Another tool is humanitarian aid and lethal assistance provided to opposition forces. Whether supplied through proxies or directly, overtly or covertly, such external aid serves two purposes: it sends a signal to the regime’s backers, and it helps level the playing field. Over time, these tools are part of a strategy of “ripening” the conflict by bleeding the regime.

But such tools by themselves are unlikely to produce a successful outcome. Thus, the answer lies partly in finding sources of borrowed leverage and credibility. Neighboring states, regional hegemons and major powers associated with the regime are the most obvious sources of the needed leverage. Close behind them are regional organizations, alliances and the UN. A few examples illustrate the argument:

U.S. negotiators found leverage by engaging with the backers of all factions in the complex Cambodia diplomacy of the early 1990s. It worked because of broader geopolitical dynamics and the ability to exploit the appetite for exit in the key “patron” capitals.

In Liberia in 2003, U.S. officials brought minimal military presence (mainly offshore) to bear, but the main action was to catalyze the military and diplomatic support of Nigeria, Ghana and the Economic Community of West African States (and then the UN secretariat) to shape a two-year transition plan that removed Charles Taylor from office, set up a transitional regime and paved the way for elections.

The United States acquired leverage (as well as some less welcome initiatives) from UN mediators and Central American leaders in the diplomacy preceding the 1992 El Salvador settlement, snatching success from the jaws of a domestically controversial quagmire.

UN credibility and professional skill provided the backdrop to sustained U.S. efforts that ultimately succeeded in a 1988 agreement ending the colonial regime in Namibia and the major Cuban military presence in Angola with the help of leverage borrowed from neighbors, allies, the Cubans and the Soviets.

And finally, French and UN forces, along with rhetorical support from the African Union, enabled Washington to play a quiet but firm backseat role in removing a stubborn tyrant from office in Ivory Coast in 2011.

IN SYRIA, U.S. diplomacy has focused on mobilizing a wide circle of roughly one hundred states in the Friends of Syria ad hoc group, which meets periodically outside the UN context to evade Russian and Chinese vetoes. In parallel, U.S. diplomats have elicited the help of Arab states in birthing the Syrian National Coalition in hopes of unifying diverse opposition forces and getting them widespread international recognition. Unifying the opposition camp is essential to gain and hold the strategic initiative. This is a form of leverage.

But the ultimate and most important source of potential leverage remains Moscow. Washington pursues this target by unifying and recognizing the opposition; engaging on the UN track, which provides Moscow (and many others) with some face-saving; backing broad economic sanctions against the Assad regime and providing nonlethal assistance to the opposition; and working behind the scenes to screen and channel third-party lethal aid. These efforts—properly understood—serve to bleed Moscow’s client while offering the Russians the possibility of a way out. This would consist of their pulling the plug on Assad (while denying they were doing so, of course) while playing a key role in shaping the next phase of a transition endorsed by the Arab League and the UN. Official Washington will need a sober realism to pull something like this off. If Moscow is being asked to join in birthing a “new Syria,” it will want to know what kind of baby is being conceived.

Borrowing leverage is the essence of good diplomacy. But it is not the only diplomatic tool in the arsenal. If the troubled regime is a friendly one at some level (e.g., the Philippines under Ferdinand Marcos), Washington has the option of withdrawing or reducing its support. If the target is a rogue warlord or an unfriendly regime, U.S. diplomacy can facilitate a leader’s exile by speaking to those who might accept him, as Washington did successfully in Liberia in 2003. An unheralded but brilliant example of arranging a soft landing occurred in Ethiopia in 1991, when rebel forces were on the outskirts of Addis Ababa. The Soviet-backed thug Mengistu Haile Mariam and his immediate coterie escaped to Zimbabwean exile just before the Tigrayan rebel chieftain Meles Zenawi entered the city. That diplomacy was conducted by U.S. officials using one of the most powerful modern diplomatic weapons: a cell phone. In Syria, tasks like this are more likely to fall to the Russians or the Iranians.

Another conundrum in transitional diplomacy is to be found in relationships with opposition movements, both armed and civilian-led. Washington needs to define its real purpose and motivations as it reaches out to Syrian groups (or refuses to) and considers including them in meetings and providing them tangible assistance. Are we trying to help them win, to warn them against certain kinds of behavior, to curry favor with them in case they come out on top, to send a message to the regime’s backers, or simply to have a seat at the table and keep options open as events unfold? Are we aiming at regime collapse or a brokered transition? What lessons have we learned about such choices from earlier examples that might be relevant today?

While many precedents suggest answers to such questions, there has been a lack of conceptual clarity in U.S. decision making and public commentary. The most important choices involve when to reach out to local opposition parties as a regime begins to run into trouble; whether and how to engage with armed actors, including those that may engage in acts of terror or other forms of criminal activity; and what roles armed opposition movements should be allowed to play in negotiating the transition.

The political context shapes much of the answer. In the case of a previously friendly regime that finds itself sliding into political crisis—for example, Iran under the shah, the Philippines under Marcos or Egypt under Hosni Mubarak—the act of engaging opposition groups inevitably sends a powerful signal of distancing and hedging. That, in fact, may be its primary initial purpose. Diplomatic support and institution-building aid may follow. But even in relatively peaceful settings where the goal is to hedge and broaden contacts in the society, engaging with opposition movements should not be viewed as a gift to them. Engagement of this kind is not making nice; it is a test that merely opens the door to a possible roadmap for relations. It may also be undertaken to protect future equities and avoid estrangement from a future leadership. In any event, it should be done early in the process, ideally before political conflict ripens into crisis.

The picture gets more complicated when the crisis facing a previously friendly regime crosses the line toward violence. One reason is that state institutions, and the people running them, may be at risk. Hence, it is important to assess the pros and cons of working toward a relatively soft landing versus sweeping away the old order. As regime brutality converts protesters into rebels (often the result of provocations aimed at precisely this result), we need to know much more about the armed groups that emerge. They may be led by patriots or warlords. The leadership may be pragmatic or ideologically rigid. Its agenda may be homegrown or shaped by those who arm and fund it; that agenda may be driven by principle or by the raw quest for power. The armed opposition may be cohesive or destined for future internal strife when the old order crumbles. Armed groups may or may not respect the rights of innocent civilians.

A deep dive is required to get some answers. And again, that requires early engagement, not as an act of solidarity with future “good guys” but in order to send warnings, clarify positions and interests, ask tough questions and obtain information. As the old regime goes down (assuming the United States lets that happen or cannot prevent it), it becomes increasingly important to avoid rose-colored glasses in viewing likely successors: there are no Nelson Mandelas in most scenarios, especially violent ones.

ENGAGEMENT WITH armed groups entails risks and requires clarity about objectives. Groups that get on the U.S., UN or EU lists of proscribed entities because of terrorist acts pose particular problems. Officials may be deterred by potential controversy or legally prohibited from contact with them in the absence of special waivers—a relatively recent development that severely complicates peacemaking in conflict zones. Since the June 2010 Supreme Court decision in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project,nonofficial organizations have been directly constrained in their dealings with armed groups that are on U.S. terrorism lists. This prohibition can be interpreted as criminalizing mere training, advising on political solutions or providing humanitarian aid. U.S. legislation, court decisions and executive regulations severely undercut U.S. diplomatic reach and represent a form of unilateral diplomatic disarmament. The net effect is to require communication through private non-American intermediaries, resulting in excessive reliance on intelligence channels or on other friendly third parties that are free from such self-defeating inhibitions.

These recent legal and legislative developments compound an already-complex environment for engaging armed actors. Contact with armed groups operating in friendly states such as Spain, Colombia, the Philippines, Yemen or Northern Ireland is highly sensitive politically. Key exchanges typically take place in the utmost secrecy, often conducted by nonofficial bodies. It is essential that policy makers and citizens regain the flexibility to deal with potential future players emerging during violent transitions, and the earlier the better. After all, in places such as Spain, South Africa, El Salvador, Kashmir, the Palestinian territories, Nepal and Afghanistan, it is hard to imagine how the United States and other outside powers could have exerted influence for constructive change without engaging the men with the guns—even those you would not bring home for dinner.

There may be plenty of people like that operating in Syria. So it behooves U.S. officials to recall the core purposes of engaging armed actors. One is to support moderate voices and undercut rabid extremists and the greediest warlords. Another is to make clear the limits of what can be achieved by the gun and to encourage a return to politics. By debating, arguing from experience elsewhere and asking awkward questions, it is possible to open the eyes of blinkered militants—a classic tool of good diplomacy. A third goal is to split the leadership or entice it to think and act politically so a negotiated transition can have a chance. The most basic message is this: terrorism and armed struggle cannot get you what you say you want, but politics can. It is this approach that has eventually prevailed as successive British governments and international mediators grasped the Northern Ireland nettle. This is also the approach pursued almost invisibly by various third parties that have successfully pushed the paramilitary group ETA to abandon the violent pursuit of Basque national aspirations.

This logic applies equally to violent transitions that threaten regimes we do not like. Policy toward such places as Cambodia, Zimbabwe, Burma, Angola, Sudan and Kosovo required a similar calculus about how much and what kinds of support to offer opposition groups. In Cambodia and Angola, U.S. officials had few illusions about the character and conduct of the Khmer Rouge and Unita, respectively, and they did not entertain ideas of their achieving an outright military “win.” Where they faced both armed and nonviolent groups, as in Kosovo, an effort was made to walk a fine line—recognizing the critical role played by the men with the guns while also taking steps to include those employing peaceful and nonviolent methods. There are important lessons for Syria here. Trying to avoid relations with armed groups actually marginalizes us more than them, a point that applies even to the more radical elements of any opposition movement.

On the other hand, it matters what roles armed groups are permitted to play in an eventual negotiation process. Unless they are somehow defeated or marginalized by civilian leadership, armed groups will assert their right to be at the table on matters affecting security, cease-fires, external military monitoring, future force configurations and disarmament. These are topics on which armed groups have a direct “professional” stake and on which their buy-in is essential. Furthermore, they are unlikely to cooperate unless they get credible answers on their priority security concerns: Who will guarantee an agreement and assure that others respect their commitments? What remedies will be available to one faction if others cheat? Libya illustrates what can happen when there is no authoritative, binding understanding about the intricate process by which a successor regime achieves a monopoly on the use of armed force.

Having recognized their role in the negotiation of security issues, however, it is imperative that armed groups not be allowed to dominate other items on the agenda of a negotiated transition. Issues such as election monitoring, refugee return, freedom of assembly and speech, economic reconstruction and the administration of justice are rightly in the purview of civil-society actors and political parties at the negotiating table. This is easier said than done, however, as long as groups of contending armed men are in a position to intimidate or coerce other players.

The point is that negotiation is a process in which issues need to be sequenced. Giving militarized groups—especially ones organized along regional or sectarian lines—a direct role in shaping the terms of political change and writing a new constitution is a dangerous approach. It encourages armed actors to entrench their positions permanently and block the emergence of a civil order. The experience of Bosnia after Dayton illustrates the pitfalls of guaranteeing sectarian or nationalist militants a power base from which to make political demands. The lesson here is to detach the immediate transition arrangements, in which power is inevitably shared, from the next phase, in which political roles are defined constitutionally. The negotiation of peace in Syria must be distinct from the negotiation of its first post-Assad constitution.

AS DIRK Vandewalle argued recently in Foreign Affairs, Libya’s new elites are benefiting from the fact that Muammar el-Qaddafi destroyed any institutions he inherited and essentially built none that were left behind after he was murdered. Syria, however, has a variety of important civic institutions, including its administrative apparatus and its “deep state,” along with the personnel who staff them. These will be important subjects in the coming negotiation. Some observers critical of U.S. restraint in supporting the armed opposition imagine a scenario of outright rebel military victory and complete regime collapse. Under this line of thinking, the opposition is winning and ought not to have “victory” snatched away by some form of diplomatic intervention.

But there is a difference between battlefield success and the creation of a positive transition to a post-Assad era. Syrians themselves witnessed Iraq following the U.S. invasion and probably do not want to see Assad’s defeat translate into a similar chaotic vacuum of contending factional militias. It is for the emerging Syrian leadership to determine which agencies and institutions should be retained to assure continuity of governance and what sort of lustration process should be established to vet Assad-era personnel. If a chaotic vacuum or the outright breakup of the country is to be avoided, those issues will need to be negotiated with representatives of the state. Thus, the role of externally led diplomacy is to seize the window of opportunity created by the changed military balance and to support a negotiated transition. Diplomacy and military power must work hand in glove—they are not opposites or alternatives.

Assad and his coterie will be defeated and depart the political arena—under house arrest, in exile or horizontally. Brahimi is right to come out publicly to clarify that Assad’s contribution to peace must be to depart the scene. That is because he and those through whom he wages war on his people have forfeited any claim to power, however modified or limited. They will be fortunate indeed if they manage to avoid Qaddafi’s fate or a trial at the International Criminal Court. Such scenarios—and others like them when leaders flee, as in Haiti, Ethiopia, Liberia or the Philippines—illustrate one part of the spectrum of regime transitions. At the other end of the spectrum are Burma and South Africa, where open warfare was preempted by farsighted leaders capable of negotiating and managing change. It is probably too late for a Syrian equivalent of Thein Sein to come forward and reach out to opposition forces. And, just as there are no Mandelas in most violent scenarios, there also are few F. W. de Klerks capable of seeing the long-term interests of their core constituency.

Viewed in this light, a negotiated transition settlement is not an alternative to battlefield victory. It is the way to exploit and follow up on military success and the creation of a coherent political opposition. To be sure, negotiations do not always succeed, and their successes are often short-lived. It will be difficult to integrate the various neighbors, the UN–Arab League process and the U.S.-Russian track into a framework that supports talks between the Syrian National Coalition leaders and elements of the state administration. It will be ambitious to devise credible external guarantees or peacekeeping monitors to provide necessary assurances as the transition unfolds.

Clearly, we are not there yet. This is a time for pre-negotiation and ripening the situation diplomatically—through assistance and sanctions pressures, by investing in our knowledge of the parties and by keeping alive a possible framework for negotiation when the time comes. Both the regime and the opposition have serious problems, and neither is in a position to deliver a knockout punch. But things could change quite suddenly. Finding the right moment to accept or solicit Russian support for a transition package will call for skilled statecraft. Such diplomacy entails risks. But diplomatic experience suggests that this way of thinking is more realistic, in the best sense of the term, than the alternatives: letting nature take its course or trying to pick a winner from within the sectarian bouillabaisse and hoping for the best.

Chester Crocker is the James R. Schlesinger Professor of Strategic Studies at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service.

Image: Fabio Rodrigues Pozzebom / ABr. CC BY 3.0.

Image: Pullquote: If Moscow is being asked to join in birthing a “new Syria,” it will want to know what kind of baby is being conceived.Essay Types: Essay